March 18, 2013

Springtime Socks and Spinning

March 18, 2013/ Crystal Van Dyken

We've had some great spring weather around here lately. Warm and sunny and I've been doing lots of spinning. The skein that I just finished started off as this 85% merino, 15% silk roving.

It's interesting that the roving had separate chunks of red and blue but once it's spun it looks purple.

The silk makes it shiny and it's really soft. I like how it turned out. I'm now spinning some corridale which I will have pictures of once it's all spun.

Recently I also finished some socks. This is a stitch pattern from Charlene Schurch's book Sensational Knitted Socks. I used the stitch pattern for the top of the foot and leg but used my own toe and a short row heel.

Here you can see the stitch pattern in a little more detail:

The only thing I would change if I were to do this pattern again would be to use a more solid colored yarn. I think this would make the cables show up a little better. They kind of blend in with the stripes of color in this sock.

I also finished these socks a while ago but only just got around to taking a picture of them. They are just plain socks knit from the toe up.

And, because I can't resist, here is a picture of a silly pup known as Lily waiting for the ball to be thrown at the dog park. She loves springtime, too.

November 21, 2012

Sock Collage

November 21, 2012/ Crystal Van Dyken

I realize that this blog has been highly neglected since the arrival of little Lily, but given the choice between typing on the computer or playing with this...

the puppy tends to win. She is now 14 weeks and growing like a weed.

In the knitting world I have been on a bit of a sock kick lately. They are just so easy to carry around with me. It is also easy to work on a row or two here and there in between stopping the puppy from chewing on table legs or chairs or blinds or shoes.

Most recently finished were these:

They are not the softest socks in the world, but I just love them. They are nice and thick and toasty warm. The yarn is called ONline Supersocke 6-ply which I believe is a German company. It is actually the same kind of yarn that my mom's birthday socks were made from last year:

The yarn has held up well through many washes which is good because I am not a fan of hand-washing my socks.

I love the color of this next pair (Cascade Heritage in the "fall foliage" colorway) but they were a pain in the butt to get just right! With a multi-color yarn you just never know what you will end up with. Many factors play into this such as the length of each color section, what size needles you use, how many stitches you have on your needles and how tight you knit.

It took a while to get just the right combination of stitches and needle size to make the colors turn out. At first the colors kept pooling which means that one half of the sock was entirely red and the other half was gold. I ended up having to use size 0 needles and 64 stitches to make the pooling stop.

They are a little small but I'm ok with that. :)

August 26, 2012

Happy Birthday, Dad!

August 26, 2012/ Crystal Van Dyken

Yesterday was my dad's birthday and I wanted to make something for him. He is a Flyers fan so I thought it would be fun to make some bright orange socks. The problem was that I couldn't find the orange that I wanted in sock yarn. At this point I thought it might be fun to dye some myself. I got some bare knitpicks stroll yarn and lots of orange kool aid. When I got the yarn it looked like this: Click Here

I don't know the final tally of how many packs of orange kool aid it took to get to it's final color but it was a lot! I kept re-dying it with more until I thought it was finally dark enough. I would guess I used around 20 packs by the end.

When it was done and drying it looked like this:

I got some black yarn (also knitpicks stroll) for the heels and toes. These socks became my Alaska project while we were visiting parents last month. (I kept 1 project at my parents house and these stayed at my in-laws house so that my dad wouldn't see them.)

From a distance they look like a solid color, but up close they are tonal with stripes of light and dark orange just because of the way the dye happened to take. I think it makes for an interesting look.

Since my husband was at work I had to model the socks with my own foot which was a little too small. My toe doesn't even come close to the end of the sock.

Hopefully they fit him and will keep his feet toasty warm during hockey season!

April 29, 2012

Bigfoot

April 29, 2012/ Crystal Van Dyken

A little while ago my husband requested a pair of socks that weren't made from wool. (His feet are naturally warm, and wool socks are just too hot for him.) After looking around I found a perfect yarn for some socks. I chose Knitpicks Comfy Yarn in fingering weight which is 75% cotton and 25% acrylic. Cotton doesn't stretch like wool does, so the acrylic gives it that little bit of extra stretch. He picked out the Jalapeno colorway.

It's been a while since I have made socks for him and I always forget how much longer they take to make than socks for myself. Not to mention that his feet are extra wide, so I had to modify the pattern to make the feet wider.

I made them toe-up so I could try them on his feet as I went and so that I wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of running out of yarn by the time I got to the toe.